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Post by Mojave Gator on Mar 5, 2024 0:01:41 GMT -5
Thank God. I was worried that we might do something stupid with that vacant position like hire an offensive coordinator or a special teams coach.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Mar 2, 2024 15:34:51 GMT -5
He is totally right on everything that he said. He could have stayed, played behind Montrell Johnson and lost 6-8 games, or go to a better program where he will start and his team is essentially a lock for the playoff.
I like Montrell Johnson, and I believe that he has a future at the next level. That said, he clearly doesn't have Etienne's skills and abilities.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Mar 2, 2024 15:28:36 GMT -5
Spurrier's talking out loud now. So. That might be the end of Napier. I had the same thought. Up until now, OBC has been pretty much mum on the state of the program. Now he is questioning the structure, especially given the lack of results that it has generated.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Mar 2, 2024 0:05:29 GMT -5
Napier is the worst. The degeneration of the UF football program over the last 15 years is unparalleled by any college program's fall from grace that didn't involve major scandal and/or sanctions. Obviously that's not all (or even mostly) him, but we've gone from a program that moved on from a coach that was 23-14 and 16-6 in the SEC with to keeping a coach who is 11-14 and 6-10 respectively, and I don't think anybody thinks he'll get fired if he has a winning record this season. He also is yet to have a top 10 recruiting class. It's insane. With as many people shilling for Napier as there are, I'm not even sure if getting rolled by Miami in the season opener (which I expect to happen) will be enough to begin to shift momentum. I am befuddled by how comfortable that our supposedly spoiled fan base has gotten with tolerating mediocrity - and worse.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Mar 1, 2024 22:43:20 GMT -5
If Napier stays, 2025 is rumored to be the last year of the eight-game conference schedule, with the SEC potentially increasing to nine conference games for the 2026 season.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 29, 2024 0:48:50 GMT -5
The only comfort that I take in all of this is the fact that this sad, psychotic experiment in alternative reality will be over within the next year.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 25, 2024 18:05:17 GMT -5
League coaches were sorted into tiers and ranked within them.
Tier A Kirby Smart
Tier B Kalen DeBoer Brian Kelly Steve Sarkisian
Tier C Eli Drinkwitz Mike Elko Hugh Freeze Josh Heupel Lane Kiffin Mark Stoops
Tier D Shane Beamer Clark Lea Jeff Lebby Billy Napier Sam Pittman Brent Venables
About these rankings: First of all, no chance that Brent Venables is a Tier D coach. He led the Sooners to a 10-3 record one year removed from being handed a stripped roster after Lincoln Riley went to USC. He also hung the only loss on Steve Sarkisian, who they think so highly of. Napier is clearly Tier D, and probably the worst coach of the group. Clark Lea can't get competitive talent given Vanderbilt's academic standards. Sam Pittman has at least shown signs of progress, and even in a down year he beat Napier on the road in 2023. Jeff Lebby is a first year head coach going into a down program (he was Venables' OC at Oklahoma). Shane Beamer might stand a chance fighting Napier for last place in the SEC.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 25, 2024 17:22:32 GMT -5
Groom some people for what? Obviously not to take any responsibility.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 25, 2024 17:20:53 GMT -5
Jesse Ackerman named Associate Assistant Vice Co- Director of Player Development and Stuff So yet another coach who needs an overseer. We now have two babysitters on staff when those positions could have been used to hire an offensive coordinator and a special teams coach. Instead we get more meaningless titles and no real substance.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 17, 2024 23:42:29 GMT -5
I can't say that. I was at UF during the Doug Dickey years. Dickey brought in a lot of talent and did a terrific job of squandering most of it. In 1974, a year when we lost four games, we had a lead at halftime in all of them. In that respect he was a lot like Zook. Get a lead by the end of the second quarter, then try to run out the clock in the second half. Other teams adjust while you go into a shell, and it often bites you. Was Dickey actually bad enough to be considered in the bottom 15% of coaches in the conference though? It was a different time but he would have had to be the second worst. If he brought in more talent than the average SEC team and they stayed in school no matter how bad a game coach he was he's still ahead of Napier. I don't recall any coach ratings back then. He managed to lose to less talented teams multiple times, and his game strategy was atrocious. We even toyed with running the wishbone on scattered plays, an offense that (as I discovered after transferring to Oklahoma) you cannot master to any level of effectiveness unless you run it consistently. Not a lot of game awareness either. I remember a quarterback throwing the ball out of bounds on fourth down to stop the clock on our final drive with us trailing Ole Miss 13-10. There was no transfer portal back then, and players generally had to sit out for a year if they transferred. Transfers were rare. I only recall scattered instances in which players didn't have to sit out after moving. One involved a player transferring to a school closer to home to care for his ailing father.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 13, 2024 18:28:35 GMT -5
I don't concern myself with the lower divisions.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 12, 2024 13:26:29 GMT -5
I am finally going to be able to put a cap on this, since UCLA didn't take anyone else's head coach.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 12, 2024 1:09:15 GMT -5
Depending upon who UCLA hires, this thread may finally close for good.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 11, 2024 23:45:24 GMT -5
He wants to work for a winning program.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 11, 2024 15:44:48 GMT -5
CWT does not learn, he's every bit as stubborn as Dan Mullen and has even less reason to be. It is a truly odd phenomenon. I don't understand why Napier is so convinced that what he is doing is working. Our special teams, defense and offensive line are horrible. Our best players on both sides of the ball have transferred to other SEC schools, half of his last recruiting class also hit the transfer portal, and the offensive play calling sucks. There is such a paucity of talent on the coaching staff that I don't know who will take over the program when (not if) CWT is fired before the end of the season.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 10, 2024 20:28:35 GMT -5
Speculation on Chip Kelly's departure:
He was likely to be fired at UCLA at season's end.
He didn't like recruiting (sound familiar?).
He didn't spend time around boosters, which left UCLA at a disadvantage in NIL.
His coaching staff was being poached by rivals.
Ohio State's OC leaving to take the BC job opened a door that wasn't available before. O'Brien had been at Ohio State for three weeks, then BC's coach took the Packers' DC job.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day played quarterback for Kelly at New Hampshire, and he coached under Kelly at his NFL stops in Philadelphia and San Francisco.
The timing sucks, because it's a little late to be looking for a head coach. I know one that they can have.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 10, 2024 19:06:37 GMT -5
Your counting us out in the bowl game pretty quick. I think we have a chance against those little homeless mix-breeds if we can just manage to get ourselves lined up for the Puppy Bowl. A golden retriever would kick our asses. The puppy bowl is made up of shelter dogs, which pretty much summarizes our recruiting classes.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 10, 2024 13:48:15 GMT -5
A lot happened after I unpinned the original CCC thread, including the departure of two of the biggest figures in the game. A summary of where things went, including the recent departure of Chip Kelly from UCLA to take a demotion at Ohio State. I'm sure that there is a backstory, but we will probably never hear it.
Alabama Out: Nick Saban In: Kalen DeBoer
Arizona Out: Jedd Fisch In: Brent Brennan
Boston College Out: Jeff Hafley In: Bill O'Brien
Michigan Out: Jim Harbaugh In: Sherrone Moore
San Jose State Out: Brent Brennan In: Ken Niumatololo
UCLA Out: Chip Kelly In: DeShaun Foster
Washington Out: Kalen DeBoer In: Jedd Fisch
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 10, 2024 13:36:14 GMT -5
Well, fellas, seems he's gonna hold onto the playbook. footballscoop.com/news/billy-napier-says-he-wants-to-keep-calling-plays-at-floridaAfter all, says Billy: “I think down the stretch we played pretty good offense. We created a bunch of explosive plays. We scored points. I think we’ve got a quarterback that’s returning in the same system." Makes sense. After all, our offense closed out "the stretch" with five straight losses in which we averaged 27 ppg and 217 passing yards. Talk about EXPLOSIVE!!! I must have missed that "bunch of explosive plays", despite the fact that I watched every play of every game during that stretch. Case in point: The Florida State game, in which the offense scored ten points in the first quarter and didn't dent the scoreboard again.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 9, 2024 16:03:34 GMT -5
Oh yeah, there has not been an era that I've been alive where a coach at UF being considered the 14th best out of 16 SEC coaches would have even gotten him a 3rd year. I can't say that. I was at UF during the Doug Dickey years. Dickey brought in a lot of talent and did a terrific job of squandering most of it. In 1974, a year when we lost four games, we had a lead at halftime in all of them. In that respect he was a lot like Zook. Get a lead by the end of the second quarter, then try to run out the clock in the second half. Other teams adjust while you go into a shell, and it often bites you.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 7, 2024 18:58:52 GMT -5
Are you asking where is the bar if I get to set it, or where do I think the bar is that SS cowbell has set. For me, year 3 after Mulllen ..... 8-4, maybe 7-5 if you were really, really competitive in a few loses, but none of the loses can be to teams we are better than. For SS cowbell ..... 6-6, just make a bowl game, any bowl game. I can hear the excuses already about strength of schedule.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 7, 2024 16:52:50 GMT -5
For me, anything less than 8-4 is a clear indication that Napier will never get it done. This is the third year, meaning by extension that about 75 percent of the roster is players that he brought in. Zero excuses.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 7, 2024 16:49:59 GMT -5
This is a total shit show. We have a defensive coordinator and a head coach of the defense. The HCD is a mentor to the DC, who calls the plays, which makes zero sense. We have two offensive line coaches, and a horrible offensive line, but no offensive coordinator. Napier refuses to address the elephant in the room, the terrible play calling. I believe that even with Graham Mertz at QB, with the right receivers and play design we could have a decent vertical passing game. We joke about Mertz checking down frequently, but a big part of the reason that he does is that he isn't given time to throw. It's hard to find receivers when you have a defensive lineman in your face all of the time. I’ve been in a couple of organizations that were like this. It’s a tactic to avoid accountability. Bob thought Heather was going to update the spreadsheet but she maintains a different spreadsheet. This is the CFB equivalent in my opinion and it will not work. It clearly doesn't work, yet the AD continues to indulge Napier's tinkering without addressing the real problems.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 7, 2024 15:02:14 GMT -5
This is a total shit show. We have a defensive coordinator and a head coach of the defense. The HCD is a mentor to the DC, who calls the plays, which makes zero sense. We have two offensive line coaches, and a horrible offensive line, but no offensive coordinator. Napier refuses to address the elephant in the room, the terrible play calling. I believe that even with Graham Mertz at QB, with the right receivers and play design we could have a decent vertical passing game. We joke about Mertz checking down frequently, but a big part of the reason that he does is that he isn't given time to throw. It's hard to find receivers when you have a defensive lineman in your face all of the time.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 6, 2024 22:26:37 GMT -5
Florida fans and boosters held on to the notion that Florida had a top five class coming in as they overlooked two losing seasons. But with the class falling apart and a vicious 2024 schedule there is no way Billy Napier gets out of the season as head coach. His final five games — Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State. Not good.
- Mike Farrell, MikeFarrellSports.com
Asked about his message to the fanbase following Florida’s 39-36 OT loss to Arkansas, Billy Napier says, “It’s not my job to preach patience. It’s my job to coach the team.”
While this is factually true, it’s not exactly what fans want to hear after a loss that can largely be blamed on coaching. Florida attempted to substitute on offense to spike the ball ahead of what would have been a game-winning field goal, but an illegal substitution penalty pushed the attempt back, which kicker Trey Smack ultimately missed.
- Tyler Nettuno, ForTheWin
On Monday, Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier held a press conference. In it, he announced that linebacker Brenton Cox Jr. had been kicked off of the team. Naturally, that drew questions from reporters. The aftermath of the press conference also generated some drama.
When the press conference was over, the stream continued. In the stream, some reporters were heard talking to each other. One of those reporters — identified by a Gators blogger as Mark Long of the Associated Press — was clearly heard saying “I don’t give a f***. I will be here longer than Billy Napier. I can promise that” when in a conversation with another reporter.
- Michael Dixon, AwfulAnnouncing.com
To make sense of why Billy Napier seems to be flailing in his second year at Florida, we must revisit an incident from his time at Louisiana-Lafayette.
In 2019, Napier said scholarship players would be required to donate $50 to the athletic department's fundraising arm, though later the school clarified that it was only encouraged. Napier defended it with a lot of platitudes, saying he wanted to build a culture of gratitude for all the work that went into making the players’ jobs easier.
That's a nice idea, but the mechanism was all wrong. At a time when we should have been talking about schools paying players, the idea of players paying the school was a failure to read the room.
Why is that relevant to Florida? It’s a question of style over substance. Napier is a genial person, but he’s the king of coach speak. He loves quoting famous people. He loves a buzzword as much as a first down. He says what he thinks you want to hear.
And that’s a great way to get a big-boy job like Florida. It’s not necessarily a great way to keep it, especially at a school that chewed through three coaches in 11 seasons before Napier showed up.
Last year, Napier lost a lot of credibility with the Florida fan base when he ended his debut season with consecutive losses to Vanderbilt, Florida State and Oregon State to finish 6-7. But there was promise in the offseason of improvement, excitement about new facilities and a recruiting uptick — a real chance for Napier to get some momentum and have the fan base fully behind him.
Instead, what happened? Florida looked awful in the season opener at Utah, but seemed to recover in September by notching a good win over Tennessee. Then the Gators got stomped 33-14 at Kentucky, weren’t even remotely competitive with Georgia and have now suffered a true humiliation with Saturday’s 39-36 overtime loss to Arkansas in the Swamp.
What’s Florida’s identity? What are the Gators actually good at? And why is Napier clinging to his offensive play-calling duties when the offense hasn’t been very effective?
These are all questions that Florida fans are asking, and rightfully so. As Georgia has become the nation’s dominant program and Florida State has ascended to a College Football Playoff caliber outfit, Napier hasn’t shown that he’s the game-changer to get Florida back on that level.
- Dan Wolken, USA Today
Florida allowed 30 or more points in six of its last eight games. The Gators struggled to contain explosive plays all season. UF ranked 86th in the country in plays allowed for 20 or more yards.
Florida also failed to generate havoc. The Gators ranked third-to-last in sacks and last in interceptions in the SEC.
While the Gators continue to develop on both sides of the ball, discipline and detail mistakes haunted Florida throughout the season.
UF was flagged for having two players wearing the same jersey number on a punt return in the season opener against Utah, extending a drive for the Utes that ended in a touchdown.
Mistakes like this became the norm all year.
Florida racked 90 penalty yards against the Seminoles, including a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on redshirt freshman Jamari Lyons for spitting on an opponent. Lyons was ejected from the game for this penalty.
- Topher Adams, The Independent Florida Alligator
When asked about the state of the program under coach Billy Napier, Spurrier said, “There’s a feeling around the Gators of, ‘What the heck are we doing?’ There’s a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to about organization.”
Full stop.
If that doesn’t raise a massive red flag, nothing will. Spurrier isn’t a doddering, old former coach who has lost his fastball and living his golden years on the golf course and at the beach.
This isn’t a team that was an injured quarterback away from a Year 2 improvement. Or a 4th-and-17 stop on defense, and a missed last-second field goal from winning 7 games (and possibly 8 in a bowl) and changing the narrative of Napier’s brief tenure.
Don’t let anyone sell that nonsense. This is a program that has played historically bad defense under Napier, has wasted (or couldn’t develop, or both) a top 5 NFL Draft pick at the most important position on the field, lost its most dynamic offensive player (Trevor Etienne) and best defensive player (Princely Umanmielen) to the transfer portal, and has 1 win of significance in 2 seasons (Tennessee, 2023).
program that, despite the narrative, isn’t recruiting at an elite level. The latest production: 247Sports composite rankings of No. 14 (high school recruiting) and No. 18 (transfer portal).
Those aren’t even Dan Mullen-level recruiting classes, and Mullen was fired, in part, because he wasn’t exactly stressing about player procurement.
Don’t buy the nonsense that Florida’s NIL, and the lack of cash, is the problem. You know why there’s a lack of cash?
Because those with deep pockets — those who brag about getting the head coach in any sport on the phone whenever they want because of the money they give — aren’t throwing money at a program that’s 7-13 vs. Power 5 teams the past 2 seasons.
They’re not ponying up for a program that looks like a dysfunctional and operational mess.
Spurrier is making these public statements because — the diehard Gator he is — the current state of the program is eating his insides.
And frankly, he can’t go through another season of this mess. He can’t watch Florida produce a 4th straight sub-.500 finish for the first time since 1935-38.
He can’t watch 2 players wear the same number on a play, and it prevents the defense from getting off the field. He can’t watch mistakes on special teams over and over and over, or the defense give up 33 points a game in SEC play.
He can’t watch an offense that has, schematically and structurally, been an operational disaster too many times in 25 games under Napier. Can’t watch the passing game not successfully drive the ball downfield, and instead settle for 1st level throws.
Can’t watch teams that run a fire drill kicking team on the field when they don’t need to, and the resulting penalty leads to a missed game-wining field goal.
Can’t watch a team that, 18 games into Napier’s coaching tenure, got flagged for leaping over the punt protect shield — which led to a first down and on the next play, the defense gave up a 75-yard touchdown run.
Can’t watch another loss to Georgia or LSU or Florida State, and — for the love of all things orange and blue — another loss to Kentucky.
- Matt Hayes, Saturday Down South
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 6, 2024 20:19:19 GMT -5
Bob Stoops took over at Oklahoma for the bowl game when Lincoln Riley bolted for USC (after telling the AD that he was staying, but I digress). There is precedent for such a scenario.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 4, 2024 20:28:03 GMT -5
Exactly right. I remember speaking with Machen when he was out here in No Cal on a PR visit with our local Gator club after he first became UF president. When I asked him what he thought about UM as a coach from his Utah days his eyes just lit up, and to this day I'll never forget his response: You think he'd come to UF? Maybe he was just playing with me but maybe not. The point is that I am not giving Foley credit for that hire. For further evidence that Foley was nothing more than the messenger for that hire, one need only see how it was conducted versus Foley's other hires for head coach. Ron Zook - Foley admittedly went solely off his own list, which included Zook and two coaches that they had zero chances of hiring, Mike Shanahan (who wasn't leaving the Denver Broncos for college football, especially after two Super Bowl wins), and Bob Stoops, who had just won a national title at Oklahoma and wasn't going to leave to follow the legend. Zook, on the other hand, was on the verge of being fired as DC by the New Orleans Saints after his defense collapsed and cost them a playoff spot. He has the bonus of being demoted from DC at Florida and then being given the top job. Will Muschamp - Another of Foley's short listers, who absolutely no one else was after. Allegedly the coach in waiting at Texas while Mack Brown was the head man in Austin. Foley outsmarted himself by once again going after a coach who no one else was pursuing. History tells us which approach was the correct one. Jim McElwain - Foley's trip to Fort Collins was so secretive that the Colorado sports media were waiting at the airport when his plane landed. Once again, he was racing against himself to get the hire done. Contrast this with the Urban Meyer hire. It was total radio silence, when Foley swooped in and pulled Meyer out from under Notre Dame. Nobody even knew that Florida was a contender for his services. We won two national titles.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 4, 2024 19:36:06 GMT -5
Jacobs basically set himself up to fail. He skipped training camp over a contract dispute. Then there was the dissension on the team due to having the league's most dysfunctional coach, Josh McDaniels, who was gone before season's end. He dumped Derek Carr for nothing, Jimmy Garoppolo was a total bust, and that left rookie Aidan O'Connell to throw to Davante Adams. Living here and hearing all of the team scuttlebutt, I did not draft a single Raider for any of my fantasy teams. I knew that the offense was going to be a disaster.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 3, 2024 17:55:04 GMT -5
Tennessee has filed suit against the NCAA regarding an investigation into NIL there. People who have seen their filing have said that the NCAA will lose the suit. Virginia is rumored to be signing on, and Florida may as well. A copy of the suit was sent to the Virginia AG, and the athletic department at UVa.
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Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 3, 2024 17:09:18 GMT -5
My two teams, representing my current and former home cities, could both use him. The loss of Christian Kirk, and the consequent fade out of a once-certain playoff spot, showed the lack of receiving depth in Jacksonville. The Raiders need more than just Davante Adams, especially since they are expected to bring in an accomplished quarterback.
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